Fondazione Giannino Bassetti

The Fondazione Giannino Bassetti came to life in Milan in 1994, and became a Foundation of Participation in 2016.

In coherence with the values expressed by the Bassetti family, the Foundation's aim is to promote responsibility in innovation within both the national and international setting, helping institutional, private and associational actors to orient their aims and goals, in considering them a factor of interest for the entire society; both in the techno-scientific field and regarding governance models.

The Foundation of Participation aims to:

contribute to making all of the different actors that participate in innovation decisions aware of the consequences and responsibilities that their roles entail;

to support the relationship between civil society and its institutions, contributing to scientific research and developing tools for the spread of responsibility in the technosciences, life sciences together with biomedical and oncological laboratories, in bioethics, in governance, in finance, and in business;

participate in international projects and consortium, contributing to the evolution and development of the definitions given to responsibility and innovation by the European Union;

collaborate with public entities in the promotion of governance projects that lie within the specific competences of the Foundation and its collaborators, participating within organizations that operate in similar fields and forming project partnerships in collaboration with other entities tied to public administrations;

In the 1994 Statute, the objective to "create a new and renewed awareness around the memory of a precedent, a modern and widespread sense of social, civil and political responsibility amongst those who innovate" was set.

Our bilingual website www.fondazionebassetti.org describes this 20 year path from its beginning from its position as an integral developemental component, through hundreds of videos, thousands of articles and a mine of information on the most advanced innovation sectors.

An itinery of this length has certainly presented challenges and has led to many successes: The concept of responsible innovation is now accepted and promoted throughout Europe and the United states.

Reflection around the impact of technoscientific advancement within society has grown with and alongside the concept of Responsible Research and Innovation: for example in May 2016 the European Commission officially announced that the Bassetti Foundation had been awarded Smart-map. This Horizon 2020 project aims to analyze, together with industry and European society, the practicalities surrounding responsible innovation within several of the most interesting fields of aplication, for example 3D printing within biomedicine, precision medicine and synthetic biology.

The fact that public opinion is today convinced that innovation is extremely important, can be seen as sometimes negative. As a consequence, the ambition to address this through the promotion of responsibility in innovation requires refined tools and alliances. As a result in 2016 we decided to rewrite and change the Statute, allowing the collaboration - thanks to the position as a Foundation of Participation - with external structures: from the institutions of higher and further education, to research centres working in the natural sciences and in other situations that are pertinent to our mission. A reality that means that working towards innovation does not mean thinking merely about the economic results but also the values held by society in which the innovation is situated.

The first participant is the Regional Government of Lombardy - through an agreement made in June 2016. The region is represented by its President in the Board of Participants.

The Foundation premises

The Fondazione Giannino Basssetti's address is: Via Michele Barozzi 4, off the Corso Venezia, in the centre city of Milan. It can be easily reached by subway: line number one, Palestro stop (see the map - Google maps [2]). For contacts send a e-mail; [3]; or phone or fax to: Phone: +39 02 76392030 Fax: +39 02 76392030

President: Piero Bassetti

Piero Bassetti (Milan, Italy, 1928) graduated in Business and Economics from Bocconi University, Milan and perfected his studies at Cornell University, subsequently specialising in Economic Sciences at the London School of Economics.

Board member and Councilor at Milan Town Council from 1956 to 1967, he was the first President of the Lombardy Region from 1970 to 1974. Member of Parliament from 1976 to 1982, he was also President of the Chamber of Commerce and Agriculture in Milan (1982-1997) as well as President of the Union of Italian Chambers of Commerce (1983-1992). From 1993 to 1999 he was President of the Association of Chambers of Commerce Abroad (CCIE).

Currently President of the Giannino Bassetti Foundation, the purpose of which is the study of "responsibility in innovation". He is also President of Globus et Locus, an association of institutions whose objective is to analyse global and local relations.